Such a great week!

We've had such a great week. We're so happy to have all the girlies home!

Claudia's all registered for school and that went really well. It's nice to be settled in to a school already. She doesn't have PE this year because she's taking Spanish and she's over the moon about that. As much as I hated PE when I was in school, and oh, did I, I can't help but be happy for her, too. Sorry, miserable PE experiences aren't inherently character building--mostly they just suck. I signed us up to volunteer with the PTA again this year, but we went with organizing the school carnival because they meet once a month, so it's a good opportunity to meet other parents. Here's hoping they're not all a bunch of bores.

Jason and Leah spent Wednesday and Thursday nights with us. We love having them here. I've probably said this before, but they're the kind of people you would choose to hang out with even if they weren't your family. They worked a physics booth at the State Fair on Thursday and they brought the kids back some cool sciencey stuff.

Last night and tonight my band played outdoors at Connor Prairie before the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra went on. We did a New Orleans street band thing and it was pretty fun. We got comp tickets for family, so last night Jamie and the girls met me there. I'm not a big fan of symphony commercialism, although I can see why it's necessary, but the atmosphere at these things can be very I-seem-to-be-at-a-minor-league-baseball-game, but that aside, wow. I mean, first of all, the ISO is awesome. It wasn't too hot and we sat under trees on the grass on blankets and when it got dark the stage was lit really beautifully. There were stars and a nice breeze and it's not every day that you can hear that class of music with a child on your lap and a child with her head resting on your shoulder with fireflies flying around. The theme was Mardi Gras (in August?) and they played Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, and a bunch of other stuff in that vein. Byron Stripling was the guest musician and he was amazing and funny, too. They did an Armstrong melody that started off with the trumpet riff from the beginning of West End Blues. Squeee!!!!




Jamie took Claudia and Jordan (Sam's at her mom's) to Ft. Wayne today because Andy's there visiting this weekend.

Last night while we were at Connor Prairie, a cicada fell on Claudia's head (lucky!) so of course, she played with it the entire time and then brought it home and left it in an organizer that wasn't completely closed next to her bed. She figured it would be there the next morning because it's pretty big, as far as bugs go, and no wings. Well, it moulted in the night and after they molt, they have wings so where the bug had been there was only a creepy shell left behind. Gah!! But happy ending/sad ending, she found it in her room, took it to Ft. Wayne with her where it made its final escape while they were having lunch in the back yard.